I have been proven wrong. I have always thought that the IC, power cable, speaker wire "improvements" was a bunch of crap to seperate fools from their money.Well I was sitting in a 3rd world hellhole with a big chunk of money burning a hole in my pocket, feeling foolish enough to waste some cash on some new IC's. The wierder the better. I decided on Mapleshade's ribbon IC's, nothing is wierder than copper foil running through baggies.Well, they arrived today, I plugged them in, and BOOM! Right out of the box they kicked ass. I am truly amazed.There is none of the "Well It sounds less muddy" crap. There is a night and day difference. I can truly hear further into the music. Wow!I have had my head buried in the sand for far too long.You are free to ridicule me.

Donnie got to love your honesty. I concur just received first pair of ic's from decware. First sacd I listened to was Benny Carter cuz I wanted to compare a trumpet solo where it previously sounded a little muffled at one point...was shocked to hear the clarity come through my horn speakers and that was just the FIRST time!LIFE IS GOOD...now how to figure out how to spend more time listening

Sberger, I just bought the entry level "Ultrathin Analog Ribbon Interconnect's". I bought them just because they were so freaky looking. I would have bought Decware's but I figured that there would be a backlog on them and I needed instant gratification.

Yup, I have been a skeptic of Audio Jewelry in this great hobby of ours since 1981 when I got into it with my Turntable at 17. However, Cables do matter.

I have carried my Kimber Select 1030 and 3033 in their Pelican Cases to others and proved it! These cables are transparent like only the SE84CS is.....and together....breath taking applies. I do not miss the money....but, I would miss my Kimber Select Cables!

I know what you mean. I like exploring cabling, and I've started one friend here in town on a cabling journey. Recently I've had great success with the interconnects from www.cryoset.com Sound like a very nice balance of tone and detail in my system. Body to the sound without slowing it down.

All I can add now is that I am very happy with my stereo right now. It sounds as good as anything I have ever heard.I have no plans to upgrade for a while. Maybe change the tubes later on this year because they are starting to get a few hours on them. If everything holds out, next year I will get some new speakers. More likely than not some HR-1's or even the upmarket HR-One's (giggle).The MG944's truthfully are more than likely better than my ears can hear, but sometime I just need to spend some money.

That happened to me with power cords. So many years into this hobby but couldn't rationalize how a power cord could make any darn difference. Boy was I wrong. Don't remember my first aftermarket cord but do remember how the music "unhinged" from the speakers. Now I pay close attention to all aspects of the AC chain.

I've now discovered that each media player on my computer sounded different. I have been using Winamp and Foobar 2000, but now I've settled on JRiver 17.Yesterday I spent all afternoon setting JRiver and my computer up to play directly through to my Wyred 4 Sound DAC. Boom, there was another level of music discovered! I'm not too sure how much more I can get out of my equipment, but it sure is fun getting what I can find. My Torii and MG944's are so good, I have to keep feeding them better and better source material to get their true colors to show.By the way, my favorite color is plad, figure that one out.I'm now going out to my shop to work some more on my new maple equipment stand. Big hunks of a tree stump sure do take a lot of work to make presentable.

Yes, the better the source, the better the Decware amp and speaker sound. I don't think any investment in a great source is wasted with these machines, they're just able to show you what you have so well.